1. Field of the invention
The present invention relates to a cleaning method of a compact disk drive, and more particularly, to a method for cleaning an optical lens of a compact disk drive by using a cleaning disk.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Compact disks are widely used in today's office environment for storing bulk digital data. When reading data from a compact disk, its data side is always facing downward, and the optical lens of a compact disk drive is facing upward toward the data side of the compact disk. Since the optical lens is not operated in a sealed environment like a hard disk drive, dusts and impurities will gradually accumulate on the surface of the optical lens which will reduce its reading capability. Cleaning the optical lens is usually required when the compact disk drive has been used for a couple of months. There are several cleaning disks in the market already for cleaning the optical lens of a compact disk drive.
Please refer to FIG. 1. FIG. 1 shows the cleaning side 12 of a conventional cleaning disk 10. It has a hairy brush 14 mounted on the cleaning side 12 for cleaning the optical lens of a compact disk drive. Most of the cleaning side 12 can reflect laser beams like the data side of an ordinary compact disk except for the area covered by the brush 14. When the cleaning disk 10 is inserted into a conventional compact disk drive, the compact disk drive will move its optical lens to the innermost track of the cleaning side 12 and the optical lens will be moved to be focused on the innermost track of the cleaning side 12 in order to adjust the distance between the optical lens and the cleaning side 12. After the optical lens has focused on the innermost track, the compact disk drive will move the optical lens outward to read data imprinted on the cleaning side 12. When moving the optical lens outward, the optical lens will be continuously focused on the surface of the cleaning side 12 and the distance between the optical lens and the cleaning disk 10 will thus be maintained. Because the hair length of the brush 14 is designed longer than the focus distance between the optical lens and the cleaning disk 10, the brush 14 will sweep across the surface of the optical lens and wipe out the dusts accumulated on the optical lens when the optical lens is moved across the hairy brush 14 mounted on the cleaning region 16.
One drawback is found in the above mentioned cleaning method. When the optical lens contacts the brush 14, the optical lens will lose its focus immediately since the brush 14 can not reflect laser beams. This will be treated as a reading failure by the conventional compact disk drive and the optical lens will be descended and retreated by the compact disk drive immediately when reading failure occurs. Such response will allow the brush 14 of the cleaning disk 10 to clean the optical lens only once or twice when the cleaning disk 10 is placed into the compact disk drive. In order to force the brush 14 to clean the optical lens again, a user has to repeatedly insert the cleaning disk 10 into the compact disk drive.
There are other cleaning disks similar to the cleaning disk 10 shown in FIG. 1. For example, a series of small brushes may be arranged in a circle pattern instead of in a line pattern like the brush 14. But they all come with the same drawback like the one mentioned above.